MONTREAL, Nov. 10, 2020 /CNW/ - Aifred Health, a Montreal-based healthcare technology company, today announced the award of a $242,500 grant from Quebec's Minister of Economy and Innovation. The company was awarded this amount following its proposal in the call for solutions managed by MEDTEQ+, to support innovation projects by Quebec companies that help address the health concerns brought on by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
This grant, matched by contributions from Aifred Health, is being used to introduce Aifred's physician-patient application in 3 new family medicine clinics in Montreal (a fourth is serving as a control site) to help family doctors and psychiatrists better treat patients suffering from depression. Aifred's technology allows patients to input standard depression questionnaires on a regular basis, empowering them to view their progress over weeks and months, while communicating to their medical team their current mental status and providing the treating doctor with electronic access to best practice guidelines for the treatment of the individual patient. Aifred's solution is being embraced by doctors and patients because it facilitates communication and best practice treatment and enables doctors and patients to work together effectively and efficiently in a remote fashion (Telemedicine).
"The problems of anxiety and depression are unfortunately direct repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we are obliged to limit our social contacts, technological solutions are very much sought after and their use must be encouraged. We believe that the innovative technology developed by Aifred Health has the potential to respond to this important need and we are delighted to be able to support Aifred Health as it rolls out its technology to support family medicine groups in Quebec" underlined the Minister of Economy and Innovation, Mr. Pierre Fitzgibbon.
"The current pandemic has reinforced the urgency to harness the power of technology and artificial intelligence to bring better solutions to help the millions of people afflicted by anxiety and depression. Aifred Health's tool, like many other MEDTEQ+ projects, aims to better equip the Quebec health network, while providing patients with better access to information related to their health, allowing them to better control the evolution and follow-up of their treatment." declares Diane Côté, CEO of MEDTEQ+.
"We are incredibly excited by all of the support we are receiving in our home market of Quebec as we work to deliver solutions for this enormous global challenge. On completion of this project, we will evaluate the data and discuss with the Quebec government about the potential for rolling out access to our best practices technology across the entire Quebec healthcare system. In addition, we are also preparing for the clinical trial that will validate the next phase of our technology, the use of Artificial Intelligence to provide physician decision support for treatment choice for the therapeutic treatment of patients diagnosed with depression. We firmly believe that combining best practices guidelines with decision support for treatment choice will lead to significantly better outcomes for patients, for their families and for our entire society " declared Marina Massingham, CEO of Aifred Health.
About Aifred Health
Aifred Health, a Montreal based healthcare technology company, that is delivering doctor-focused solutions for the treatment of mental health including electronic access to best practices guidelines and a world-class AI approach to providing decision support for personalized therapeutic choices for the treatment of clinical depression. Aifred's AI model has been significantly validated by our participation in the $5 million global IBM Watson AI X-Prize. More than 700 teams made an initial application, and after more than 3 years of further review and due diligence, Aifred Health is the only Quebec/Canada based company in the final 10 companies across the world. For more information please see www.aifredhealth.com
About MEDTEQ+
MEDTEQ+ (www.medteq.ca) is the pan-Canadian Consortium for Industrial Research and Innovation in Medical Technology. Its mission is to accelerate the development of innovative technological solutions to improve patients' health and quality of life. MEDTEQ+ supports their validation and integration in the healthcare system and their impact, both locally and globally, by bringing together the complementary skills of industrial and academic partners, and with those of healthcare providers. MEDTEQ+ relies on the financial support of the Government of Quebec, the Government of Canada (delivered through the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR)), the private sector and complementary partners to foster research-industry relations.
SOURCE MEDTEQ+
Aifred Health: Marina Massingham, CEO, [email protected]; MEDTEQ+: Julien Caudroit, Director, Communications and events, [email protected], 514-297-5231
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